Posted February 23, 2015

See the daily excerpt from the preparatory catechesis for the 2015 World Meeting of Families, “Love is Our Mission: The Family Fully Alive.”

120. Today’s global hyper-capitalist economy also damages the middle classes and the affluent. For example, mass culture commodifies sex. Corporate marketing creates an endless appetite for new experiences, a climate of perpetually roaming and unsatisfied desire. Life in modern market cultures becomes a struggle against the cacophony of distraction, noise, and restless hungers, all of which disrupt family stability and fuel a sense of entitlement. Life in a perpetual marketplace may tempt us to think that if we desire something, if it is consensual and we can afford it financially, then we are entitled to it. That sense of entitlement is a destructive illusion, a type of slavery to the appetites, diminishing our freedom for living virtuously. Our failure to embrace limits, our stubborn insistence on our appetites, fuels many spiritual and material problems in our world today.

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In its introduction, the document says its aim is to present “Catholic teaching in a way that is fresh, insightful, and accessible to contemporary Catholics and all people of good will.” The catechesis “offers a narrative beginning with our creation, soberly noting our fall and the challenges we face, but emphasizing God’s plan for our salvation. Love is our mission, and it is by loving God and one another that we will be fully alive.”

Each day in CatholicPhilly.com’s World Meeting of Families section you can reflect on the official Catholic teaching on the family presented in the catechesis, pray a special prayer together as a family or individually, and stay on top of breaking news about the events coming Sept. 22-27, 2015.

Order the catechesis for your home via Our Sunday Visitor, and visit WorldMeeting2015.org for more information on the events.

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